Background on the UNFCCC: The international response to climate change

In 1992, countries joined an international treaty, the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change, as a framework for international cooperation to combat climate change by limiting
average global temperature increases and the resulting climate change, and coping with impacts that
were, by then, inevitable.

By 1995, countries launched negotiations to strengthen the global response to climate change, and, two
years later, adopted the Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol legally binds developed country Parties to
emission reduction targets. The Protocol’s first commitment period started in 2008 and ended in
2012. The second commitment period began on 1 January 2013 and will end in 2020.

There are now 197 Parties to the Convention and 192 Parties to the Kyoto Protocol.

The 2015 Paris Agreement, adopted in Paris on 12 December 2015, marks the latest step in the
evolution of the UN climate change regime and builds on the work undertaken under the
Convention. The Paris Agreement charts a new course in the global effort to combat climate
change.

The Paris Agreement seeks to accelerate and intensify the actions and investment needed for a
sustainable low carbon future. Its central aim is to strengthen the global response to the
threat of climate change by keeping a global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees
Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase
even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The Agreement also aims to strengthen the ability of
countries to deal with the impacts of climate change.

To reach these ambitious goals, appropriate financial flows, including by, before 2025, setting a new
goal on the provision of finance from the USD 100 billion floor, and an enhanced capacity building
framework, including an Initiative for Capacity Building, will be put in place: thus supporting action
by developing countries and the most vulnerable countries, in line with their own national objectives.
The Agreement will also enhance transparency of action and support through a more robust transparency
framework.

The UNFCCC secretariat supports all institutions involved in the international climate change
negotiations, particularly the Conference of the Parties (COP), the Conference of the Parties serving
as the meeting of the Parties (CMP), the subsidiary bodies (which advise the COP/CMP), and the COP/CMP
Bureau (which deals mainly with procedural and organizational issues arising from the COP/CMP and also
has technical functions). For a brief depiction of how these various bodies are related to one another,
please see Bodies.

Climate change in context

This time line detailing the international response to climate change provides a contextual entry point
to the Essential Background. You can also use the links on the left-hand column under Essential
Background to navigate this section.

2015 - Intensive negotiations took place under the Ad Hoc Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced
Action (ADP) throughout 2012-2015 and culminated in the adoption of the Paris Agreement by the COP on
12 December 2015. More on the Paris
Agreement.

2014 - At COP 20 in Lima in 2014, Parties adopted the ‘Lima Call for Action’, which
elaborated key elements of the forthcoming agreement in Paris. More on the Lima Call for Action.

2013 - Key decisions adopted at COP 19/CMP 9 include decisions on further advancing the Durban
Platform, the Green Climate Fund and Long-Term Finance, the Warsaw Framework for REDD Plus and the
Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage. Under the Durban Platform, Parties agreed to submit
“intended nationally determined contributions”, known as INDCs, well before the Paris
conference. More on the Warsaw
Outcomes.

2001 — Release of IPCC's Third Assessment Report. Bonn Agreements adopted, based on the
Buenos Aires Plan of Action of 1998.
Marrakesh Accords adopted at COP 7, detailing rules for implementation of Kyoto Protocol, setting
up new funding and planning instruments for adaptation, and establishing a technology transfer
framework.

1992 — The INC adopts UNFCCC text. At the Earth Summit in Rio, the UNFCCC is opened for
signature along with its sister Rio Conventions, UNCBD and UNCCD. More about the two other Rio
Conventions: UNCBD and UNCCD.

1990 — IPCC's first assessment report released. IPCC and second World Climate Conference
call for a global treaty on climate change. United Nations General Assembly negotiations on a
framework convention begin.